In a wide-ranging and provocative talk to a packed audience in Buxton, multi-award-winning author and conservationist Mark Cocker explored the devastating environmental changes of the last 100 years and offered a plan of action for nature restoration and a wilder future.
Sponsored by Hen Harrier Action on behalf of the Buxton Civic Association, the naturalist railed against the very poor state of our National Parks, the supposed ‘crown jewels’ of our landscape, and was scathing about the impact of driven grouse moors.
“Driven-grouse moors are the very inverse of a wilded landscape. They are places that are arrested and controlled to deliver a single-species outcome. Rather like an intensively grown crop. In a time of the Sixth Extinction is this really a suitable land management regime over millions of British acres?”
A New Approach to Landscape Regeneration
Challenging traditional views of environmental action, using the examples of pioneering Dutch conservationist Frans Vera, who promotes a ‘wood-pasture hypothesis’ as a model for landscape regeneration, and the late Polly Higgins, a campaigning former lawyer who coined the term ‘Ecocide’, he argued that a different kind of environmental intervention is needed, especially in our National Parks and on our devastated upland grouse moors.
Ecological restoration using grazing herbivores and agroforestry methods, Cocker proposed, would lead to faster wildlife and environmental recovery in the 21st Century.
An Audience from Near and Far
The evening was organised by Buxton Civic Association, a registered charity founded in 1967 and responsible for the conservation of over 160 acres of mature woodland across 9 different woodlands that encircle the town, along with Poole’s Cavern and Buxton Country Park.
Hen Harrier Action provided the sponsorship for Mark Cocker‘s talk, and we were delighted to provide backing for such a well-received event. BCA Fundraising Manager Lucy Marsden said, “We had a fabulous event last night with Mark Cocker! Your support and promotion resulted in ticket sales from afar“.
“I couldn’t believe how far some of the audience had travelled, “added Cocker. “We had people coming from Martin Mere in Lancaster and from Shropshire too.“